"The Vixen"
Author: Robert Brown
Disclaimer: This story uses characters created and copyrighted by Sucker
Punch, Inc. (except where noted, in which case they were created
and copyrighted by me or by another and I have permission to use
them). The author hereby gives permission for this story to be
downloaded and/or printed at 1 copy per user as long as (1) no
changes to the story are made without my express written(not
e-mailed) permission and (2) no attempt is made to profit from
this story. If either or both rules are violated, it will be
considered a violation of copyright law.
Chapter 6: Return to the Past
Bentley sat in his wheelchair outside the Cooper Gang headquarters,
looking sadly at the dark and winding road that led off into the city of Paris
proper some miles away. It had been a week since the job in Spain and there
was still no sign of Sly. Bentley was getting very worried, even starting to
lose a little hope that his friend was all right.
Sly did not arrive at the rendezvous point as planned after the job went
bad. Both Bentley and Murray had scoured the countryside for two days with
absolutely no luck. They hadn't wanted to return to their hideout in Paris,
but they couldn't figure out anything else to do. Besides, they knew that if
Sly was able, that would be the first place he'd get to.
Once they'd arrived home, Bentley had spent every day scouring Thiefnet
for any sign of Sly's whereabouts. There were a few unconfirmed reports of a
raccoon hitching a ride on various vehicles and making general progress toward
Paris, just enough to keep hope alive and well.
Since they'd been back, however, Murray refused to talk to Bentley. It
was as if he blamed the turtle for all this mess. Bentley never put up an
arguement or tried to defend himself; the truth was that he blamed himself as
well. If only he'd kept on top of the situation better, if only he'd insisted
they keep with the plan, if only....
Bentley's thoughts were disturbed by the front door opening. He wheeled
around to roll himself inside, not even looking at Murray standing next to the
door. Bentley knew that Murray would only come and get him when a meal was
ready, as he had for the past four or five days. As they both approached the
table where a very small and simple meal sat, Bentley offered up a small
prayer to any deity that was listening that Sly would make it home safe,
sound, and soon.
Before Bentley could even eat his first forkful of spaghetti, the front
door slammed open. His fork clattered to his plate as he beheld the blue
sweater and peasant cap clad raccoon crouched in the doorway. "Sly?" he
whispered, almost unable to believe that the ragged and unkempt figure in
front of his eyes was the same Sly he'd known for so many years.
"Sly!" Murray roared happily, jumping up from the table and running
toward Sly to give him a bone-crushing hug. But before he could, he had to
jump back in surprise and fear as Sly took a swipe at him with his cane,
nearly drawing blood from the hippo's stomach. "Sly?" he whispered in
disbelief.
Sly upper lip twitched as he fought to control his feelings of contempt.
"How could you?" he demanded in a low voice, a voice he'd only ever used when
talking about the ones who killed his father. "How could you!"
"What are you talking about Sly?" Bentley asked, trying to keep his
voice calm as he slowly approached the raccoon. "How could we...what?"
Sly let out a low laugh, one that made the skin on Bentley's neck crawl.
"As if you don't know," he said, fixing Bentley with a cold stare. "But if
you insist on playing, then this is what I'm talking about!" He pulled a
crumpled piece of paper and threw it at Bentley, catching him right in the
center of his chest with it. "The Vixen left that for me as a parting shot or
a clue of some kind."
Bentley slowly uncrumpled the paper with shaking hands as he felt more
than saw Murray moving to stand behind him. His heart dropped to somewhere
around his feet when he saw what it was. "Surely you don't think--" he
began.
"Don't lie to me!" Sly thundered. "There is no way the Vixen could've
gotten a copy of that page unless one of you, or both of you, gave it to her."
"How could you accuse us of that after all we've been through?" Bentley
demanded. "Besides, there's no way we could have given this to her. And I
can prove it."
"Oh really?" Sly asked, leaning against the doorway casually though
Bentley could see that his entire body was still tensed to spring. "OK, I'll
give you one chance to explain yourself, but it had better be good."
Bentley sighed and cleared his throat. "Sly, I know you're upset, and I
don't blame you for that. But in your anger, you've overlooked one key fact
that completely exonerates both Murray and myself."
"Is that so? Please then, enlighten me on the error of my ways."
Bentley adjusted the glasses on his nose before taking a deep breath and
letting it out slowly. "I'm not even going to try to deny that this is a page
from the Thievius Raccoonus; there's no way around that. But there is
absolutely no chance that it came from your Thievius Raccoonus."
"What do you mean 'my Thievius Raccoonus?' Bentley, there is only one
copy of that book in existence! You know that as well as I do."
"Quite right," Bentley agreed with a nod. "However, there is one thing
that you're forgetting. Each time you reclaimed a piece of the Thievius
Raccoonus from the Fiendish Five, you took the time to make notes on the page,
just like all your ancestors have done, to make the technique work better for
you."
"And your point is...?"
"My point is that nowhere on this page do I see your handwriting."
Sly stalked over and snatched the paper from Bentley's hand. When he
saw that Bentley was right, confusion hit him with a force akin to a Mack
truck going at sixty miles per hour. "B-but how...?" he whispered, falling
back hard on his tail.
Bentley sighed and wheeled himself over to his friend's side. "As near
as I can tell, this looks exactly as it did when you first recovered it. That
leads me to believe that the Fiendish Five must have made copies of each page.
That way, even if the originals were taken, or they themselves were carted off
to jail, there would be a backup so that they could eventually rebuild their
empires. And with the Vixen as obsessed with you as she is, she could've
easily found one stash of copies and gone on to locate the others."
Sly felt like the world had been pulled out from under him. He'd spent
the last week so enraged that he couldn't think or see straight. All he
wanted to do was make his way home and confront his teammates about their
evident betrayal. Only now, he was the one confronted with the truth he had
been unable to recognize. And as the last vestiges of his anger drained away,
the aching void it left behind wrung from his eyes the first tears he had
cried since the death of his parents.
Any resentment that Bentley and Murray had been harboring because of
Sly's actions dissipated in the face of those tears. Murray ran over and
scooped Sly up into a warm hug, trying to soothe his tears. Bentley rolled
over and joined in, trying to comfort his friend, albeit more than a little
awkwardly. "Sly," he said firmly, "I don't blame you for thinking what you
did. That book is one of only two things you have left of your family. But I
swear to you that Murray and I would never betray any of your secrets to an
enemy." Once Sly nodded to show he understood, Bentley clapped him on the
back, hurting his hand in the process. "Now that that's settled, I need to
find a way to get us to Haiti."
Sly, who had been in the process of getting back to his feet, nearly
fell back down when he heard that. "Haiti?" he asked. "Why are we going
there?"
Bentley used one of his wheelchair's attachments to scoop up the almost
forgotten piece of paper. "This page talks about your ancestor Slytunkhamen
and his Invisibility technique. If my memory serves me correctly, and it
always does, you got this page when you defeated Mz. Ruby deep in the jungles
of Haiti. Now while I swore I would never go back to that bacteria and mold
filled swamp, it appears that's where the Vixen is holed up. If you want
Carmelita back, that's where we'll have to go."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Sly asked, turning toward the door,
ready to sprint out of it.
"Hold on Sly," Murray said, grabbing him by the back of his sweater and
lifting him off the ground easily. "First you're gonna eat and then you're
gonna sleep. And I won't take no for an answer," he added when Sly got ready
to argue. "There's no way I should be able to touch you if you're at your
best. And right now, you're so far from it you won't be any help to Carmelita
when we do get there."
Sly grumbled something under his breath, but he knew that Murray was
right. With as much grace as he could muster, he slipped out of Murray's grip
and stalked toward his bedroom. "Anything else?" he asked over his shoulder.
"Yeah!" Bentley called and Sly was mentally kicking himself for even
asking. "Take a shower first. You stink!" Sly did everything he was ordered
to by his friends, especially the sleep. He was a little afraid to go to
sleep, worried that he'd have nightmares about Carmelita's abduction. But he
was way too exhausted to have any dreams and his sleep was undisturbed.
The next morning, Sly was up and ready to go before the others. He
briefly debated waking them up, but his actions the night before prevented
him. Instead, he decided to attempt to cook breakfast. Unfortunately,
attempted was the key word as he completely ruined the food he was cooking,
not to mention the pan, stove, and the sink. The smoke coming from his
charcoaled pancakes and dessicated eggs filled the lower floor of the hideout
and forced Sly to open up the window to air it out.
"What's going on down there?" Murray roared. He came bounding down the
stairs only to come face-to-face with a very sheepish Sly fanning the smoke
out the window. "I don't even want to know," Murray said when Sly opened his
mouth to explain. "I cook, you steal. You should know that by now." He
sighed as he surveyed the damage, rolling up the sleeves on his nightshirt.
"Go sit over there; I'll see what I can salvage."
It wasn't until almost noon that they were on their way to Haiti.
Amazingly, Bentley had managed to book them the exact same route that they had
taken when they had hunted down Mz. Ruby. It was a simple drive to get from
the secret airport where they'd landed to the point where Sly had first
penetrated the jungle. "OK, I'm off," Sly said, taking up his cane as Murray
backed the van up.
"What do you mean you're off?" Bentley inquired. "I thought we were
going into this as a team."
"While I'd love for that to happen," Sly said, "I don't think there's an
easy way for you to get where we have to go in your wheelchair. Even then,
I'm the only one who can navigate the branches and vines with the Raccoon Rail
Walk and Rail Slide."
Bentley sighed but acknowledged the truth of Sly's words. "All right,
we'll do this old school then. I'll keep tabs on you from here and try to
warn you of any problems."
"This shouldn't even take that long," Sly said with a confident smirk.
"I'll be to the main hub in a minute and a half flat."
"I believe you could have if this were two years ago. But it has been a
while since we've been here, and who knows what changes the Vixen has made to
the path. Just keep an eye out and don't get too cocky. That's probably what
the Vixen is expecting of you."
Sly kicked open the van's doors and looked out at the swamp for a long
moment. "I'll try," was all he said before jumping out and landing on the
mossy ground. He ran forward and jumped across two rocks but had to backpedal
when a large mosquito dropped out of the sky. One swipe of his cane took care
of it, but he was still a little shaken up. "Hey what gives," he said,
bringing up Bentley on the binoc-u-com. "I thought for sure the swamp would
be deserted after we defeated Mz. Ruby."
"And it is, in a sense," Bentley replied. "The giant mosquitos called
this swamp home long before Mz. Ruby ever set foot inside it. So expect to
run into at least a few of them, and a few giant spiders."
Sly rolled his eyes but put the binoc-u-com away. He jumped to a worn
away branch that he rail walked across and then to another jutting rock with a
stone idol on it. The first time he'd been here, the idol had glowed with an
unholy light. But the idol was dark now, the magic that was in it gone. He
looked at it for a second or two before shrugging and using the drum in front
of it to trampoline up to the vine above.
Halfway into the rail slide he executed to reach the next ledge, he
nearly lost his footing on a piece of slippery moss. He needed to use his
cane to keep from falling into the murky water, but he managed to arrive at
the large leaf safely. "I don't remember that being there," he muttered,
taking out his binoc-u-com and using it to zoom in on the offending piece of
plant life.
"Like I said Sly," Bentley said, thinking that Sly had been talking to
him, "who knows what changes the Vixen has made."
Sly didn't even bother to respond as he put the binoc-u-com away. He
jumped to the next leaf and then spun into another rail slide. This one
turned out to be a triple rail slide as he had to grind on three vines in
quick succession. There were a couple patches of strategically placed moss on
the vines, but now that he was aware of their presence he was able to avoid
them without any problem.
He jumped from the end of the final vine to another large leaf and then
to a more stable patch of ground. He took care of a group of three mosquitos
without any problems before noticing that his binoc-u-com was buzzing.
"What's up Bentley?" he asked, turning it on so that he could speak to his
friend.
"Something's wrong Sly," Bentley said, his face looking worried. "I
should've been getting a feed from the signal repeater I stashed in your area
the first time we came through, but I'm not getting anything."
Sly scanned around until he saw the signal repeater, or at least what
was left of it. "Hmm, that might explain it," he said, making sure Bentley
could see the debris.
"How could she?" Bentley yelled, slamming his fist on the console in
front of him. "The signal repeater was one of my finest technological
advancements. How could she just destroy it like an old television?"
"If it was so advanced, why did we stop using it?" Sly asked, trying to
stop Bentley's rant before it even got started. Bentley's lack of response,
and slack-jawed face, was all that Sly needed to see. Chuckling to himself,
he put the binoc-u-com away and continued on his way.
As he walked to the next drum to be used as a trampoline, he noticed
that the torches flanking it were freshly lit. "Looks like I'm expected," he
thought, shrugging as he vaulted off the drum to the waiting vine. He slid
down it easily, transferring to the next vine flawlessly. Another drum waited
for him when he reached the end of that one, leading up to another vine that
led to yet another drum and yet another vine.
That vine allowed him to slide through two cliffsides to reach a branch
that he could rail walk on, but he noticed too late that the only place he
could land was covered in moss. He tried everything he could to stick the
landing, but his feet flew out from underneath him as soon as they touched the
slippery moss. Even worse as far as Sly was concerned, his feet went in
opposite directions and he ended up straddling the branch hard.
Pain of the specific type that only men could experience shot through
Sly's body. Gritting his teeth against the whimper that wanted to escape his
throat, he slowly drew himself up to his feet. "I'd like to take a moment of
silence to mourn the loss of my future children," he hissed in a tight voice,
shifting rapidly from one foot to the other to try and relieve some of the
pain.
A loud chittering sound caught his attention. One of the large spiders
that called this swamp home was hanging from a silken thread looking at him
and laughing. At least that's what Sly interpreted the chittering sound as,
and it was making him mad. "Think that's funny?" he yelled, his voice an
octave or so higher because of his pain. The sound of Sly's voice only made
the spider laugh harder, swaying on its silk. Sly ran over and swung his cane
like a bat, launching the spider deep into the jungle where it disappeared
into the darkness still laughing.
"I'm glad someone finds humor in my misery," Sly muttered, finishing his
rail walk and jumping across to the solid ground. He clearly remembered this
part; the path led him into a tunnel through a massive tree stump and out the
other side. But inside the tunnel was one of the strangest creatures he'd
ever seen. Some kind of conglomeration of wood, vines, and moss that was
easily decapitated by one swing of his cane. The problem was, of course, that
the head and the body could act independently of each other and still attack.
He really hoped that this was not one of the swamp's natural denizens.
For the first time that day, something actually went right for him and
he passed through the tunnel unmolested. After making a double rail walk to
the top of the stump, he was pleased to find it empty as well. "Looks like a
few things are finally going my way," he thought, running across the stump and
leaping off the edge. His instinct was to pull out his parasail, but he
wasn't sure how the dampness of the swamp would affect its effectiveness.
Besides, he'd made the jump before without the parasail, and this time would
be no different.
He landed in front of a wooden fence with very sharp pointed tops. The
last time he was here, the fence was guarded by some kind of mystic weasel.
Now however, it was completely unguarded. He jumped straight up and over the
lookout section and ran down the ramp behind it. Halfway down, he had to stop
and run right back to the top.
On the ground below were ten tentlike structures, just as he remembered
there being. There had been about six weasel guards as well, guarding five of
Mz. Ruby's purple force field candles. Now there were seven canine guards,
and there were again five purple candles. But where before the force field
created by the candles had been used to protect the first of Mz. Ruby's
treasure keys, this time the force field blocked the only path into the main
hub of the swamp.
"She is good, I'll give her that," Sly thought, surveying the area
carefully. "Not having any other guards in place made me think she wouldn't
have any here. And I almost ran right into trouble." He watched the guards
as they patrolled the grounds, memorizing the routes they walked.
It was a pretty basic patrol sequence, mostly circular around one tent
or a figure-eight around two. But he couldn't really take out any guards with
his cane without alerting the other guards of his presence. Still, there was
a way to pull it off, and it shouldn't be too much trouble for him.
Sly crept down the ramp as the nearest patroldog passed, taking his cap
from his head. He tossed his cap down right in the path of one of the dogs,
activating the mine hidden inside when the dog was close enough. Just like
he'd planned, the concussive blast knocked the dog out without making too much
noise. Sly grabbed the dog by his shoulders and dragged him out of sight,
making sure the blast hadn't hurt him too much.
And so it went with the next five guards, Sly easily knocking them out
before they even knew what hit them. But the final guard was smarter than Sly
had counted on. The pooch had noticed that he no longer saw any of his
compatriots, so had become a lot more wary. It was no more than a rustle of
grass in the still air that made him whirl around, but it was enough to catch
Sly in the act of laying his final cap.
Sly looked up as the dog cocked his gun and levelled it at his head,
only now noticing that the guard had found him out. He started to raise his
hands in surrender, but instead turned and dove behind the nearest tent. The
guard gave chase, but made the mistake of walking over Sly's cap; a mistake
he found out about when Sly made it explode.
"That was almost careless of me," Sly thought, not even bothering to
hide that guard as he was the last. He ran through the area, snuffing the
purple candles out with his cane. As soon as the last one no longer burned,
the force field that blocked the exit vanished. "That was the easy part,"
Sly realized as he ran up the ramp and under the giant bat skeleton. "The
hard part will be figuring out just where the Vixen is holed up.
"If I were her," Sly continued silently as he performed a rail slide
down a long vine to get to the center of what was once Mz. Ruby's lair, "I
would go the one place that's the hardest to get to and the hardest to get
through: Skull Temple." He sprinted forward as he landed on the mossy ground
to where a bone altar still stood. Even though the candles were dark, Sly
could still feel a lingering evil in the ground that it stood on, a testament
to Mz. Ruby's power.
Most of the area was dark, lit only when strays bolts of lightning
streaked across the sky. But a couple of candles were lit to his left,
framing the shortcut to where the cauldron probably still lay. "As I
thought," he said with a smirk, slinking toward the candles and then jumping
on the drum that lay between them.
He made a perfect landing on the upper walkway and ran along it to
where, as Bentley put it, the "voodoo egg beater" waited. But when it came
into view, Sly got a surprise. Though the masks were still motionless from
when he brought the lid down to ride it up to the Temple, the torches were
unlit and the cauldron lid was missing. It looked like no one had even been
near it in years.
Sly swore softly under his breath. "I could've sworn that she would've
been there," he said with an angry sigh. But now that he got a good view of
the temple itself, he could see that it too was dark and even crumbling a bit.
"Probably less safe up there than I remember it being."
He sighed again and looked around. "Where could she be? She wouldn't
have led me here if she didn't want me to find her. That's what her whole
game is about." But there was nothing else; everything was as dark and
lifeless as the green goo that spouted from a nearby stone structure.
"Wait a minute," Sly told himself, staring at the pea-colored liquid.
"Didn't Bentley make sure we stopped the flow of that? Hey Bentley," he said
aloud, turning on his binoc-u-com and dialing the speaker volume up to the
maximum so that he didn't have to bring it up to his eyes, "didn't we dry up
the green goo?"
"What are you talking about?" Bentley asked, his nasal voice about an
octave higher than normal. "Of course we did. There's no way I could've
allowed such a crime against nature to continue to exist. It goes against
everything I believe in!"
"That's what I thought," Sly said, using the hook of his cane as a back
scratcher to reach that one place nothing else could. "So what would you make
of the fact that the goop is flowing again?"
"I'd say that another call to the Health Department is in order,"
Bentley said matter-of-factly. "But I think that's not the answer you're
looking for. So yes Sly, I'm pretty sure that the Vixen has made that
underground cavern her base. And when I get my hands on her...."
Sly raised an eyebrow at the tone of Bentley's voice. "I promise I'll
save you a piece after I get done with her," Sly said with a chuckle, shutting
off the binoc-u-com as Bentley continued to rant and rave. He jumped off the
walkway and rail walked around the branches surrounding the "egg beater" to
reach the area that still often haunted Bentley's nightmares. Sure enough, a
calling card in the shape of a white fox's head awaited him.
"Honey, I'm home," he muttered, walking down the tunnel carefully,
keeping his eyes open for any danger. The first thing he noticed was that the
branches that had covered the path when he'd first been this way had been
freshly cut, erasing any doubt he had over the Vixen's presence.
As he emerged into the cavern proper, he rail walked to the first
floating platform before a voice stopped him from going any further. "Glad to
see you finally made it Cooper," the Vixen's voice taunted him. "Carmelita's
getting really lonely you know with just me and the goo for company. Did you
know she's started talking to the goo? I always knew she wasn't quite sane."
Sly whirled around, his cane held ready until he saw where the Vixen
was. She was crouched on top of one of the massive cobra head stone statues,
drumming her fingers casually against the shaft of her cane. "Where is she?"
Sly asked, slashing the air in front of him with his cane. "Let her go!"
"Now now Cooper," the Vixen said, wagging her finger at him, "you know I
don't respond well to being talked to like that. I had considered making this
a little easy on you, but since you see fit to order me around, I'm going to
make you do this the hard way."
"Hard way, easy way, it doesn't matter. Every way that this goes ends
up the same way: you in jail and Carmelita in my arms."
"Big words Ringtail, but let's see if you can back it up. I'll be
waiting for you at the end of the Magic Slide. If you think you got what it
takes, just bring it. And try not to keep me waiting too long; a lady never
likes to wait and I've already waited far too long for you."
"The only lady who's waiting on me is Carmelita!" Sly yelled as the
Vixen pulled a disappearing trick. "And what did she mean by 'Magic Slide?'"
He thought as he turned around and dashed forward. He jumped off the platform
and, using his cane, crawled along a line of connected bones that led
underneath a platform ringed with spiked logs. Sly thanked his luck that no
guard patrolled this platform or the one next to it, but then cursed it in the
same breath as one of the bones he crawled across broke away just as he put
his weight on it.
Fortunately, his reflexes were quick enough to avoid getting dumped in
the slime. "That female is really trying my patience," he growled, jumping
carefully to the next line of bones and testing each one before he put his
weight on it. Two more bones did break away, but Sly had no trouble avoiding
them this time.
He jumped off the end of the second line and landed quietly on a large
rock. Ahead of him were five floating platforms that gently rocked from side
to side atop the river. Sly winced as he remembered the guardian of those
platforms, a weird bird or turtle like creature that would throw its own
flaming skull at him like a bomb. More than once Sly had nearly been burned
to a crisp by those things, so he was very grateful that the platforms were
unguarded.
He leapt easily from platform to platform until he reached the log
bridge that ran toward a large stone idol of a crocodile or something like it.
Acting on instinct and memory, he ran across the bridge to the base of the
idol and hooked his cane onto a line of bones that snaked up around the idol
in a spiral. This line of bones ended well before the top, but another one
started a couple of yards beneath him.
Sly closed his eyes as he climbed to the final bone of the line he was
on. He really hated this part; leaping out into mid-air and hoping he could
catch his hook on the bones below. Normally he wouldn't even question his
abilities but with the Vixen's penchant for leaving surprises for him on what
seemed to be secure places, he couldn't be sure that he wouldn't fall down to
the ooze because the bone he chose to grab broke away.
He studied the second line of bones, trying to pick out one that looked
either more or less secure than the others. He leaned down to peer at the
lower bones, all of which looked a little off, when the one he was holding
onto gave way. "Whoa!" he yelped as he fell, reaching out with his cane
blindly to stop his descent.
His cane hooked onto the third bone from the bottom and he was able to
bring himself safely to a stop. "That was too close," he said, grabbing hold
of the bone and wrapping his body around it. It was then that he noticed that
the bones had been colored differently from the others to make it seem like
something was wrong with them when in fact they were perfectly safe. "I
should've known," he grumbled, pulling himself up the bones with more force
than was necessary.
When he reached the top of that line, he jumped forward, landing on the
idol's outstretched arm. He sprinted forward to where the clawed hand was and
jumped over the claws, snagging his cane on a hook dangling from the ceiling.
He used his momentum from the first leap to launch himself at the second hook
and then to the support beams below.
The last time he had been here, rickety wooden planks had linked the
stone beams and security lights had swept across them at specific intervals.
Now the lights were dark, the wood broken and gone. It would be tricky,
especially since the beams still bore spiked logs on parts of them, but
nothing that he couldn't handle.
He prepared himself to make the first jump, but he saw something coming
at him out of the corner of his eye. Whatever it was, it was on fire and
moving too fast to intercept so Sly had to jump before he was ready. He threw
himself across the gap, landing stomach first on the next beam over. The
object landed right where he had been, shattering on the stone and bursting
into flames.
Sly looked at the fire in disbelief as it burned itself out. "Oh come
on now!" a gruff voice yelled from near the end of the beams. Sly kipped up
to his feet and looked to where the voice came from. A grey wolf with overly
shaggy fur stared back, a cruel smile on his lips. He was wearing a black cap
with orange stripes and an orange jumpsuit with black stripes. He stood out
so much against the murky background of the cave that Sly had no idea how he
missed him. "You didn't think you were just going to stroll through this, did
you?" the wolf asked, tossing a clear ball filled with a translucent fluid up
and down.
Sly didn't bother answering him; he was way too pissed off right now to
talk. He ran along the beam he'd landed on, jumping to another beam only when
he had to avoid either a spiked log or a thrown firebomb. Sly smirked when he
noticed that it took a second or two for the wolf to launch another firebomb;
he had to lit a fuse before he threw it or it was useless. Sly timed his
jumps so that the last one brought him in front of the wolf just as he'd lit
the latest fuse.
"What the--!" the wolf exclaimed, taken aback by how quickly Sly had
gotten so close. Then he realized the bomb he was holding was lit and threw
it into the river below just before it exploded in his hands. He was about
to give himself a pat on the back for his quick thinking when Sly did it for
him...with his cane.
Sly touched two of his fingers to his temple in a mock salute as he
watched the wolf fall to one of the platforms below. Without waiting to see
if the wolf would get up, Sly jumped out and grabbed onto a hanging rope,
pulling himself up it hand over hand. Once he was high enough, he jumped to a
wooden chandelier, rail walking along the outer edge of it.
He had to navigate another rope, another chandelier, and yet another
rope before he made it to the top of the green waterfall. As he found on the
support beams, the alarm system he'd encountered when he was here after one of
Mz. Ruby's treasure keys was deactivated. But also like the support beams,
this area was protected by a pyromaniac wolf. "Got by my brother?" the wolf
called tossing a couple bombs that landed well short of Sly. "Let's see how
you do against me."
Sly immediately knew that this would be a bigger problem than the first
one. For one thing, the river platforms here were a lot tougher to keep his
balance on. For another, this wolf had a candle in front of him that he was
using to light the bombs one after the other. That meant he could throw his
firebombs almost non-stop. Fortunately the wolf wasn't a strong thrower so
the bombs couldn't reach him yet, but that was going to change the moment he
stepped foot on a platform.
Sly feinted toward the left platform to draw the wolf's fire that way,
but jumped to the right instead. Then he jumped to the right again, dodging
the firebomb the wolf sent at the other platfrom as if he'd expected another
feint. But Sly could get no closer as the wolf laid down a barrage of
firebombs that kept the nearest platforms alight with fire.
Sly tried to find a way through the fire, but the heat was almost
unbearable and he was still a platform away. But soon enough the way found
him as the fires died out with no firebombs coming to replenish it. Sly
looked at the wolf in surprise to see him digging through a burlap sack,
probably looking for more firebombs.
"Uh oh," the wolf muttered when he found the sack was empty. He
swallowed nervously and looked up at Sly. The raccoon was methodically making
his way toward him, spinning the cane around in his hand with an obvious evil
intent. The wolf sighed, tossed the sack aside, pinched his nose shut, and
cannonballed into the viscous liquid.
Sly ran over to where the wolf had jumped in, watching him as he went
feetfirst over the waterfall and disappeared. "That was...weird," he said
after a moment. Shaking his head, he walked down the platform to where he
could hear the goo rushing from.
Two dead torches stood out in the river, allowing him to spire jump up
to a bone platform. Two more torches led him up to a bigger platform that
overlooked the whole cavern. A single purple candle sat in the middle of the
platform, glowing with an ominous light. Nothing else could be seen from his
vantage point so Sly slammed his cane down on the candle. He didn't expect
it to do much, but it did let him vent a little of his anger.
As soon as the candle was extinguished, a long and winding branch
appeared out of thin air, perfect to rail slide on. Sly stared at it a moment
before chuckling to himself. "I guess that's what she meant by 'the Magic
Slide,'" he realized. Mentally smacking himself for forgetting such an
important part of this area, he jumped up and landed on the branch, using it
to rail slide to where the Vixen was waiting.
As he slid along the branch, he kept his eyes peeled for the Vixen. But
even as he neared the end, she was nowhere to be seen. "That lying, conniving
little--"
"Surprise!" the Vixen yelled, cutting him off as she dropped in on Sly
from above, her cane swinging for his head.
Sly barely got up his arm to block the blow. But though he protected
his head, the force of the strike numbed his arm and made him stagger into the
wall. "Where is Carmelita?" he demanded, trying to rub feeling back into his
arm.
"Don't worry about her," the Vixen purred, taking another swing at him.
"Worry about me."
Sly clenched his teeth in anger and went on the offensive, swinging and
slashing his cane every which way. With a surprising amount of ease, he was
able to disarm the Vixen and knock her down in only a couple blows. "That was
too easy," Sly growled, keeping his cane trained on her. "What's your game
now Vixen?"
The Vixen stared him down for a second before laughing. "How easy you
are to fool Cooper," she said, reaching up for the top of her mask. She
pulled it off...and half her face too! But no, it wasn't her face she pulled
off, the entire thing was a mask! The face behind the mask was no vixen
either, it was a white feline with patches of brown and grey on her face.
"You're the Vixen?" Sly asked, his mouth dropping open in shock.
"Hardly," the cat purred in a much deeper voice than he had heard
before, chuckling deep in her throat. "But if you really thought she was
going to face you like this, you are sadly mistaken. This was only a test to
see if you really would come here."
"Where is she?" Sly demanded, resting the tip of his cane against her
throat even though he had to force himself to do so without shaking.
"Who?" the feline asked, blinking her blue eyes innocently at him. "Do
you want Carmelita or the Vixen? It doesn't matter, they're both in the same
place. Since you beat me, I guess I can tell you where that is. Or rather,
show you." She reached into her boot and threw something in Sly's face.
Sly caught the item on instinct, allowing the feline to scramble away
from him and escape, leaving nothing behind but her mocking laughter. Sly
started to give chase until he noticed the item he held in his hand. With a
rueful grin, he turned on his binoc-u-com and held it up to his face. "Do you
read me Bentley?" he asked, taking a few breaths to force himself to stay
calm.
"I read you Sly," Bentley said, his face appearing on the corner screen.
"Is everything OK? Did you beat the Vixen? Did you save Carmelita?"
"The Vixen wasn't even here," Sly said in distaste. "It was just one of
her flunkies made up to look like her. But she did give me a clue to where
the Vixen really is. I'm going to need to be picked up and then you need to
make arrangements for us to travel to India."
"India?" Bentley asked, adjusting the glasses on his face. "Why do you
think she's in India?"
"Oh, call it a hunch," Sly said, focusing the binoc-u-com on the item
the female feline had tossed to him: a red rose with one of his own calling
cards on the stem, just like the one he had left Carmelita after his dance
with her in Rajan's palace.
TO BE CONTINUED (
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